Contributor
Kit Powell
Composer
Biography
Born in 1937 in Wellington, Kit Powell met Brigitte, his Swiss wife, while studying in Europe in 1966/67. Since 1984 the Powell family have lived in Switzerland. Kit has an MSc (in maths) from Victoria University of Wellington and a B Mus (Hons) from Canterbury University. He taught maths and music at Linwood High School, Christchurch, and also composed music for a series of five total theatre productions. In 1975 he joined the staff of the Christchurch Teachers College where he met the poet Michael Harlow and started the first of nearly 20 works in collaboration with him. He was also active teaching courses on New Music and Creative Music with children. Since living in Switzerland he has taught music theory at the Conservatory in Zurich and English privately. In 2003 he retired from teaching but is still very active composing.
Important influences in his development as a composer in NZ are the contact with Douglas Lilburn as a student, the visits to the Cambridge Music School in the early 60s (tutors Ron Tremain and Larry Pruden) and in Europe courses at the Accademia Chigiana, Siena (Goffredo Petrassi), Darmstadt Course for New Music (Karlheinz Stockhausen) and training in computer music (Gerald Bennett) in Zurich and on the UPIC machine (Iannis Xenakis) in Paris.
His works include compositions in all fields of music: choral (sung and spoken), orchestral, chamber music, brass band, percussion, music theatre, and electroacoustic. His special interests in composition include the use of chance techniques and also music with found objects. Many works have been written for his two children, Philip (trombone) and Fiona (soprano).
Although he has lived in Europe for well over 30 years, he has never lost his strong feelings for New Zealand, its land and its inhabitants. Bird and whale song are often important features of his music, and works like Tide Pools and Kapiti show his affection for New Zealand seascapes. In his Māui Cycle, in addition to the birdsong, one also hears many fragments of traditional Māori music.
Since retirement, Kit Powell has composed a number of large scale works: Missa Profana (a setting of the liturgical mass plus poems by Michael Harlow) for large choir, soloists and orchestra, Māui Cycle (four symphonic poems for orchestra and solo clarinet), Symphonie réflectique, for two soloists and orchestra and Schubert 1828, a symphony based on themes from works from Schubert’s last year of life, using the same orchestra as in the Schubert E flat Major Mass plus electroacoustic sounds. He has also written a dual language book about his work as a composer: Quite by Chance / Wie durch Zufall (Pfau-Verlag—also available at SOUNZ).
Composed (96)
for women's chorus, soprano soloist and piano, 10m